Six Very Groggy Thoughts about Election 2018 (Circa 10 am EST)

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Six Very Groggy Thoughts about Election 2018 (Circa 10 am EST)

I had made it a point not to hear any­thing about the elec­tion at work yes­ter­day, when some­time between 10 & 11 PM a co-​worker who hates POTUS with a pas­sion said that the GOP was keep­ing the House and Sen­ate. Given that the pols had not yet closed in Cal­i­for­nia and the west this seemed very odd but he insisted he had looked it up on the net dur­ing his final break. I turned on NPR when I got in the car some­time after mid­night and the moment I heard the reporters voices sans the panic and despair of 2016 I knew he had got­ten it wrong about the house. You can always tell by the tone of voice of the media how an elec­tion has gone.

I fell asleep some­time before 4 AM wait­ing for actual num­bers by the time I dropped off the Democ­rats were 4 seats away from clinch­ing con­trol with about 30 house seats still uncalled. As of this moment (10:15 AM) there are still 20 hours seats not yet called but Dems already have 221 seats in the bank and lead in 8 more sug­gest­ing 229 seats for Dems. What’s really inter­est­ing here is that as of this moment it looks like Dems flipped 30 seats (the GOP flipped 4) mean­ing that to keep that major­ity in 2020 the Democ­rats have 11 votes to play with. That’s not much.

There is a lot of good news bad news stuff here. The bad news of course is the left actu­ally won the house, given the pros­per­ity gen­er­ated by the Trump admin­is­tra­tion cou­pled with the vio­lence by the left , it was a real shock as it means the coun­try will see a lot less of the for­mer and a lot more of the lat­ter. Democ­rats also took sev­eral gov­er­nors seats but not enough to get a major­ity. On the plus side with three sen­ate races still uncalled and the GOP lead­ing in two of them (Mon­tana & Ari­zona) we are look­ing at 52 – 54 seats in the Sen­ate mean­ing that it’s very like there will be a Collins/​Murkowski/​Romney proof major­ity for judges. In gov­er­nors races not only has the GOP held MA and NH (no sur­prise there) Held Florida (huge relief there) Held VT & MD (huge sur­prise there) but they seem to be lead­ing in CT (very big sur­prise there) and have GA well in hand (some relief there). This sug­gests that some folks here in the North east might finally have fig­ured out that absolute Demo­c­rat power is a bad thing.

If I was Mitch McConnell I’d call the Sen­ate back into ses­sion as soon as pos­si­ble and make one last attempt to pass any house bills that have not yet been voted on or held up due to a lack of votes. With McCain out of the pic­ture he has one more vote to play with and if the left object claim­ing the man­date of their win in the house he can claim a man­date by the wins in the sen­ate for the upper cham­ber to advance the president’s agenda.

While I hate being wrong about any elec­tion, there are going to be sev­eral things inher­ently fun about the Democ­rats in con­trol of the house for the next two years, begin­ning with the vote for speaker where all of those Dems who insisted they would not be for Pelosi end up elect­ing her. Fur­ther­more a lot of cra­zies man­aged to win in deep blue states mean­ing that the left will be dying to go full pussy hat while Pelosi tries to make sure her cau­cus doesn’t have a Kavanaugh moment that so dis­gusts vot­ers that those 30 dis­tricts she flipped go the way of the Sen­ate, and rest assured while the media will cover for her Trump will pounce. Fur­ther­more if any bump in the road comes in the econ­omy or in the stock mar­ket or any rever­sal at all Pres­i­dent Trump now has a scape­goat to lay the entire blame on and don’t think for one moment he won’t do it.

Finally last night when I got home the wife was get­ting ready to leave for the Hos­pi­tal as her sis­ter in great pain had been taken there by ambu­lance she didn’t get home till 6 am and only briefly woke a few min­utes ago to tell me that it’s kid­ney stones which while painful are not likely to be any­thing life threat­en­ing. This is an impor­tant reminder that when it comes down to it, what hap­pens in your home and fam­ily is much more impor­tant than any polit­i­cal result and if you’re wor­ry­ing more about the lat­ter than the for­mer you’re doing life wrong.

I had made it a point not to hear anything about the election at work yesterday, when sometime between 10 & 11 PM a co-worker who hates POTUS with a passion said that the GOP was keeping the House and Senate.  Given that the pols had not yet closed in California and the west this seemed very odd but he insisted he had looked it up on the net during his final break.  I turned on NPR when I got in the car sometime after midnight and the moment I heard the reporters voices sans the panic and despair of 2016 I knew he had gotten it wrong about the house.  You can always tell by the tone of voice of the media how an election has gone.

I fell asleep sometime before 4 AM waiting for actual numbers by the time I dropped off the Democrats were 4 seats away from clinching control with about 30 house seats still uncalled.  As of this moment (10:15 AM)  there are still 20 hours seats not yet called but Dems already have 221 seats in the bank and lead in 8 more suggesting 229 seats for Dems.  What’s really interesting here is that as of this moment it looks like Dems flipped 30 seats (the GOP flipped 4) meaning that to keep that majority in 2020 the Democrats have 11 votes to play with.  That’s not much.

There is a lot of good news bad news stuff here.  The bad news of course is the left actually won the house, given the prosperity generated by the Trump administration coupled with the violence by the left , it was a real shock as it means the country will see a lot less of the former and a lot more of the latter.  Democrats also took several governors seats but not enough to get a majority.  On the plus side with three senate races still uncalled and the GOP leading in two of them (Montana & Arizona) we are looking at 52-54 seats in the Senate meaning that it’s very like there will be a Collins/Murkowski/Romney proof majority for judges.  In governors races not only has the GOP held MA and NH (no surprise there) Held Florida (huge relief there) Held VT & MD (huge surprise there) but they seem to be leading in CT (very big surprise there) and have GA well in hand (some relief there).  This suggests that some folks here in the North east might finally have figured out that absolute Democrat power is a bad thing.

If I was Mitch McConnell I’d call the Senate back into session as soon as possible and make one last attempt to pass any house bills that have not yet been voted on or held up due to a lack of votes.  With McCain out of the picture he has one more vote to play with and if the left object claiming the mandate of their win in the house he can claim a mandate by the wins in the senate for the upper chamber to advance the president’s agenda.

 

While I hate being wrong about any election, there are going to be several things inherently fun about the Democrats in control of the house for the next two years,  beginning with the vote for speaker where all of those Dems who insisted they would not be for Pelosi end up electing her.  Furthermore a lot of crazies managed to win in deep blue states meaning that the left will be dying to go full pussy hat while Pelosi tries to make sure her caucus doesn’t have a Kavanaugh moment that so disgusts voters that those 30 districts she flipped go the way of the Senate, and rest assured while the media will cover for her Trump will pounce.  Furthermore if any bump in the road comes in the economy or in the stock market or any reversal at all President Trump now has a scapegoat to lay the entire blame on and don’t think for one moment he won’t do it.

Finally last night when I got home the wife was getting ready to leave for the Hospital as her sister in great pain had been taken there by ambulance she didn’t get home till 6 am and only briefly woke a few minutes ago to tell me that it’s kidney stones which while painful are not likely to be anything life threatening.  This is an important reminder that when it comes down to it, what happens in your home and family is much more important than any political result and if you’re worrying more about the latter than the former you’re doing life wrong.